Arsenal’s 0-0 draw at Burnley made it seven games without defeat, and a clean sheet isn’t something we’ve had too many of this season.
However, it was a disappointing day for Mikel Arteta and his team, spurning early chances to score through Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, and thankful to Burnley for missing opportunities of their own.
It’s been difficult for this Arsenal side to play well for 90 minutes, something which is a concern to the manager and afterwards he was asked when he thought his team might produce that kind of display.
“I hope it doesn’t take long,” he said. “There have been different circumstances. I wouldn’t compare what happened today with what happened in the last four games, because for two of them we played with 10 men, which is not easy as well.
“We need more consistency, with the ball as well. We were fantastic in some moments, but were so sloppy and put ourselves in big trouble with a lot of unnecessary situations that we have to improve, because that gives the opponent an opportunity where there is a real scenario for nothing to happen.
“We need to improve that a lot.”
The injury to Bukayo Saka seemed to take the wind out of our sails, the delay in substituting him didn’t help either, but Arteta was a bit happier about the final stage of the game.
“The positive thing is the reaction in the last 20 minutes, when we started to play again,” he said.
“We had the courage to play and the courage to take the opportunity that they allowed.
“The space was there because they committed a lot of people forward but we couldn’t finish the actions well enough to score.”
Arsenal now have two weeks off, and with a training camp scheduled in Dubai for Arteta to work intensively on tactic things, let’s hope we start to see it soon.
Still think its exciting with the way Arteta runs this team 🙂
Even if we got relegated…we know some of you will still find it’s exciting. We almost lost today, we were unnecessarily lucky. I thought it was a dreadful performance and Burnley deserved more.
It’s not like I have anything against the man. But all this pretense about arsenal morphing into ‘2013 peak Barcelona’ is a big joke.
What pretence about Arsenal morphing into 2013 peak Barcelona? We’re getting more organised and playing better, we’ve had some dodgy decisions against us and some difficult situations to manage. It will take time, if we keep improving as
we have been the wins will come. No sensible supporter is expecting a total transformation in six weeks.
Certainly feels like any fan that’s hoping we start winning teams in the bottom half of the table is delusional. Did that defence look organised to you today? We could have easily conceded 4 goals. Apart from Utd, Palace and Chelsea first half performances, we’ve not looked convincing. Every poor performance is now hinged on a rebuild. I understand the team isn’t good enough. I understand we have to slowly build again. But 1 win in 7 games? And to think Everton and Watford changed coaches and started faring much better is an irony. Fingers crossed anyway. I’m just a… Read more »
When will we learn that our players are just not good enough to be a top 4 team. Can you even think about this team playing Bayern or Barca again? We should start re-builing this squad over the next 3-5 seasons to get back to where we want to be.
The overall mentality of the club needs to change starting from Kroenke… Arsenal fans need to push for Dangote.. He is the man who could save us from this mess
Arteta messed up big time today
Arteta is doing a great job. He just needs to put those strikers on shooting practice and today would have been positive.
I really like Arteta & think he has a lot of promise- but at some point he needs to look hard at his team selections. Ozil is contributing virtually nothing at this point in terms of decent chances or shots (he has zero big chance creations this year) yet is an automatic starter. Lacazette while he works hard simply cannot finish this year and the cost of that is we shunt our only world class player out to the wing instead of playing him at his best position. Pepe has played better recently but for whatever reason is having a… Read more »
Spot on Atom…The Ozil and Xhaka selections have locked us into one system. Double pivot. And trying to do everything possible to make that function. It’s solid but it’s also boring and predictable. We still go wide so often. Emery tried and failed to get all sorts of systems around Xhaka especially to work, but they only way it can and does is by basically playing two defensive midfielders and playing a conservative style and hoping the wings forward and #10 are enough to get the goals. But modern football needs more variety, especially from a team that isn’t that… Read more »
Arteta did make some mistakes in this game, I think it was more of his in game management which was worse than the team selection to begin with. His substitutions were either too late like with Laca or unbalanced our play like moving Xhaka from midfield. But I do think this is to be expected. He is first time coach and is learning the trade on the Job and is bound to make some mistakes. What would be interesting to see is if he learns from these mistakes and doesn’t repeat them. Although i would say it was a big… Read more »
Personally, I have made peace with the idea of us being at the start of a rebuild. The media, some fans and opposition supporters seem to think this rot that we are in is going to be solved overnight. My gut feeling is that we are in the same position Liverpool were in when Klopp took over and it wasn’t until last season that they started to come good. We have a lot of mediocre players in the squad (not as bad as some would have you believe) as well as a number of players that have past their peak… Read more »
I agree with the Klopp/Liverpool analogy. Klopp came in and established his style and culture first, then proceeded to get the players he wanted that fit the system to slowly upgrade the team. As Santori points out elsewhere the difference is managerial clout. Klopp was a superstar hire and had the clout to go what what he needed/wanted. John Henry was never going to get in his way. Does Arteta have that, and will he and Edu have the clout to get the goods to make this really happen? We need to go get a major, influential signing or three.… Read more »
We are very consistent. We draw every game
So have we got a back up to the backup of our backup left back?
Chin up Mikel. We’re all behind you.
Love this man.
That felt like it was about our 10th match in a row that we played away from home. Where’s the Emirates gone? Where’s my wife? Where’s my car? Where’s my job? What’s happening here?!?
Bascially it’s because of Brexit, they were all European and now they’re gone
Fuck you Emery for keeping Mustafi in the team
Fuck you Emery for keeping Luiz in the team
Fuck you Emery for keeping Xhaka in the team
Fuck you Emery for not playing Torreira
Fuck you Emery for playing Auba on the wing
Fuck you Emery for not playing Pepe
Fuck you Emery for not getting Ozil to create chances
Emery Out ! Oh wait…?
Step away from the keyboard, Unai.?
Good Ebening to you too.
Just a couple of positives from the game today,not getting beat and a clean sheet.I feel when Mikel breaks everything down he will believe he started the wrong side.Ozil and Lacazette are very fortunate to be starting games at this present time.Their form is poor and bring nothing to the team at the moment Mikel will be glad of the 2 week break so he can think things over.
I am very happy with the progression, no goals conceded
Unbeaten this decade!
yeah because we were absolutely stellar defensively and gave away no opportunities…
Its was an awful performance from us today and no one could complain if we had lost. Arteta got his starting selection wrong and got lucky with a point. However i believe the process is a positive one as these are basically the same players that have underperformed for some time and are putting in a better shift and are a bit stronger defensively, the lack of goals scored has put us under pressure but surely with a few tweaks Arteta will/ must collect some wins after the brake, as in a worst case scenario I really wouldn’t like to… Read more »
Maybe a consistent lineup would help. Unless there are injuries, why not pick what he thinks is his best side and let them play. Then at the end of the season at least he knows what he has and doesn’t have.
We are too consistent already, drawing match after match.
We need to be less consistent and start winning.
How this team can even function without a midfield I don’t know.
Sorry, but I just can’t get too worked up about our Premier League performances. We’re too go to go down but not good enough to finish inside the top 5, so let’s just see this season out and rebuild in the summer.
At least we still have the FA Cup and the Europa League to look forward to.
There are only two teams in the league who are unbeaten over the last 5 games.
I think it’s a little ridiculous people are getting on Arteta’s case. Did everyone forget how DREADFUL we were under Emery basically since the start of the season? Couldn’t score, couldn’t defend…we were bailed out exclusively by Auba. You can see a clear plan with Arteta. It’s not going to work perfectly from the beginning.
Pep and Klopp didn’t turn Man City and LiVARpool into title winning sides in the first season.
Personally, I am not looking forward to the interlul. That said, the team needs it. 2 1/2 years of drama. Wagner’s last year, Unai’s yo-yo year ending with the Baku defeat, the turmoil of Emery’s departure, Xhaka’s agony and ecstasy, and some tough ten men games.
Wagner was a spectacular composer although a tad heavy and Germanic for my tastes.
I’ll be honest, I was completely unaware that he had ever managed a football team, let alone Arsenal.
Unai’s yo yo skills are another thing that had me completely blindsided.
You live and learn, eh?
Lol. Live, learn, spell. All good. Truth remains. A break is needed.
More consistency needed? I like Arteta, simply because he has common sense. But he needs to show consistency in selection now, no more chameleon tactical guesswork. We had enough of that under Emery. Arteta knows the best players are: Attack: Pepe, Martinelli, Auba. Attacking midfielder : Willock. Midfielders, Torreira, Xhaka. Defense, Saka, Pablo, Sokratis, Bellerin. The rest are reserves and backup for injuries and rest /fitness and necessary rotation. Then you gradually train and tweak tactical adaptability into that existing formation, occasionally rotating a player here and there. At most one tactical change per game, otherwise we need consistency in… Read more »
I worry that there is too much on the site today claiming Willock as our great missing hope. I just haven’t seen that much from him and would like it if Mikel got Ceballos into team fitness to see what he can bring. If not, we need a new midfield maestro.
I’ll take the thumbs down.
People want to see Willock because we’re so sick of watching Ozil trot around a football pitch and not make a single defensive physical challenge or tackle or header in the past decade.
I’d like to see Willock and Ceballos get a run. Try a midfield trio of Torriera – Ceballos – Willock. It is diverse, highly interchangable and at least something different. So sick of seeing these same guys play so miserably over and over and keep getting picked.
I gave you a thumbs up. Willock isn’t any great hope, just the best we have for the last 4 months. Keep him there just for consistency sake. The players need match practice as a team. Sure give others a run now and then, or off the bench, but mere consistency will improve our results.
Glass half full, but the only team in the league that has lost fewer games than us is Liverpool. Granted, we’ve drawn more games than anyone else, but if you think about it, that means a goal here or there a few times this season and the narrative would be totally different. Let’s not get all doom and gloom quite yet, Arteta is clearly making progress and I believe we will continue to see steady improvement throughout the rest of the season.
There is only two teams in the league that was won less than us…
Glass half empty is that only Watford and Norwich have won less. 13 draws this season, the record is 17…
The last time arteta changed his mind about a substitution , the team benefited from it. In the case of subbing saka because of injury, I will think he believes a half saka could do more damage on that left wing than any other player on the bench. I believe he must have learn from that mistake now.
Arteta has created a team that would easily have allowed us to win today. I saw three chances for our mis-firing strikers early on that could have won the game. How many times do we see pundits praising teams for winning on a day they didn’t play well?
Sorry I didn’t get to watch the game. But looking at the line up i am struggling to see what the team gained by playing Martinelli on the right!! Surely he is our in form goal scorer and should have kept his starting spot on the left. Play Auba up the middle and Pepe on the right. Would this have not been more in keeping with the fluidity we had started to get? Martinelli and Saka were forming a really good partnership on the left. Pepe for me had started to gain some confidence and was attempting maze dribbles when… Read more »
One thing which is quite glaring now that we have sorted out our defence(to some extent) is the our control in central areas of the pitch. Most of the balls are through the sidelines to the extent when a player gets the ball in the center he ends up moving the ball to the side. We are not channelling enough balls through the center of the pitch. Granted Lacazzette was not great yesterday but it does not help when the midfield players fail to see many first time passes and he did make some good runs. To my eyes he… Read more »
This team is showing consistency. Consistency in lacking ambition and killer instinct to win games. No wonder we have the most draws ever in our history during a league season. We need to start winning
This game was just another Guendouzi misfiring; he either went into reset mode or felt threatened about another coach. But a Xhaka Guen partnership has never done an Arsenal game good….. As a club, we lost the fear factor, the mentality n confidence of a top player team, but all those are basics that can return in a single flush. In this game, we had Auba n Luiz starting off the pace due to er suspensions. And the only way to ship off Ozil is returning his dignity as a footballing legend, unfortunately the EPL just may not allow that… Read more »